Game keeps crashing during Grand campaign

[DrStark]

So, played CC3 when it came out and it was a blast, one of my favourite games. Now enjoying it in its "Cross of Iron" version, it's still great.

But... I've played the Grand campaign until the last map of the first Stalingrad operation (playing as Germans), the one with a huge factory building in the centre of the map. On that map the game consistently crashes, I've tried it around 15 times now. It's somewhat random, sometimes I can play for several minutes, once almost until I had won, but usually less than a minute. Perhaps it's my imagination but it seems I could play longer at first, and lately just very shortly before it goes down. The game crashes completely with no error message or similar, the game window just shuts down. I also tried playing the same map as a single map scenario, no crashes, so it seems it's somehow linked to the Grand campaign or that save file in particular - however, if it had been an error in the save file, I figure the game would crash before or during start of the map. It seems there's something occurring during play in that map which makes the game crash.

Is this a known issue and are there any known fixes to it? It's become quite annoying of course and starting to kill of my interest in the game. I could of course replay the campaign from the start again but not only would that take a while and not be particularly fun, I might run into the same issue again when I get to that map and then I'd probably uninstall the game in frustration.

[SteveMcClaire]

Hi DrStark -- this is not an issue I've heard of before. Are you using any mods? Can you please zip and post your saved game so I can debug the crash? The save file should be found in your Windows documents folder under My Games\CloseCombatCrossOfIron\Games\Save\.

[DrStark]

Hi Steve,

No mods used, I prefer to play through a game at least once or twice before trying out mods. I've attached the file here so you can have a look at it.

I should perhaps also mention that I tried uninstalling and then reinstalling the game, but there was no improvement.

[SteveMcClaire]

Thank you. I will take a look at the file but it will probably be a few days before I have a chance.

[SteveMcClaire]

Hi DrStark -- I was able to run through the next battle in the saved game without encountering any errors. I defeated the Russians and the operation was over. Do you usually do anything special while playing the battle?

[DrStark]

Hi again, that's interesting and made me do some further testing. I came to the following conclusions:

- When I play the map with the roster as is (no requisition/refit/retire) the game runs without errors.
- When I do the sequence of upgrades to my roster which I deemed preferable for this map, it crashes.

The upgrades I do are the following:
- Refit (repair) command tank.
- Upgrade one Pz IV D to a Pz IV G, the other to a captured T34/76.
- Upgrade the first Pz III H to SS Pz III J.
- Retire the first StuG III C, instead requisition SS StuG III F1 to fill its place.

This gives me a roster as per the attached screenshot; running the map with this roster is what crashes the game for me.

I then tried a methodical approach, keeping one unit unchanged at a time. I first tried not upgrading one of my Pz IV D to a captured T34, but the game crashed again just a few seconds in. I then did not retire and replace my StuG III C and, well, this worked, I could play the whole map without crashing.

So it appears that, for whatever reason, retiring the StuG III C and replacing it with an SS StuG F1 causes the game to crash on this map. I don't know whether it's in conjunction with the other changes or if that in itself is enough to crash it, I haven't tested further than that. But it is a very strange and unexpected error, which there might be an interesting explanation behind. As this is the first time in the campaign that I'm using a StuG F1, it might be that there's something with that unit's graphics or behaviour which causes the crashes at seemingly random times while playing the map, but this is just conjecture.

It would of course be relevant to know whether this behaviour can be replicated on your end.


EDIT:

Continuing playing in the next operation, starting on the same map and upgrading one of my StuG III C to a StuG III F1 also causes the game to crash in just the same way as previously. So it's not tied to that specific operation, although possibly to the map. Either way, the StuG III F1 seems to be the culprit here (both the SS and Wehrmacht versions seem to cause the error).

[SteveMcClaire]

Hi DrStark -- thanks for the additional information. I will test that when possible.

UPDATE: I did some testing with your original save file, following the steps you took while refitting / changing your units, and still wasn't able to reproduce the crash.

At what point did the crash occur? Immediately when you started the battle? When you ended the battle? At some point during the battle?

[DrStark]

Hi Steve,

That's quite unexpected, but interesting to hear. It happens a few seconds/minutes into the battle, so far I have not been able to identify a specific "trigger event" which causes it, the first time I experienced it I almost got to the end of the battle but it typically runs for 5-10 seconds now. There is no error message, screen freeze or similar, one second I'm playing the game and the next it's closed down.

[SteveMcClaire]

Could you perhaps make a video recording of yourself playing the battle and then send it to me after the crash occurs? That might be the best way to reproduce it.